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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a strictly personal opinion.
2.5⭐
I found it... plain. First of all, it is not my genre of choice (I read it due to a uni course). Second, the characters are not well handled in my opinion and they don't give anything to the reader. This was my overall impression.
2.5⭐
I found it... plain. First of all, it is not my genre of choice (I read it due to a uni course). Second, the characters are not well handled in my opinion and they don't give anything to the reader. This was my overall impression.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Weird in a not-good way. There's a creepy protagonist who indulges in rape fantasies, a femme fatale who abuses her dopey sugar-daddy (named Homer Simpson), a dwarf who performs mouth-to-mouth on a gored and dying cock-fight chicken before sending it back into the ring, and several more of the saddest and least likable wanna-be stars in depression-era Hollywood.
Well, this was certainly a different experience. I picked up The Day of the Locust randomly at a bookstore a few weeks ago. I was looking for something new to read, and the title and description intrigued me. I am a sucker for stories that are set in LA. So many of my favorite books and movies take place there, L.A. Confidential, Pulp Fiction, Magnolia, The Big Lebowksi; the list goes on and on.
It's almost like Hollywood's favorite topic is, and has always been, itself. It's a perfect metaphor for the self-absorbed, decrepit hellhole depicted in this novel. Hollywood is obsessed with telling its own story, over and over and over again, and still is to this day.
There is a nihilism about West's Los Angeles, one that bears a striking resemblance to the one in the titles I've mentioned above. The heartlessness, the bleakness of that place makes the neverending sunshine that permeates all of its boulevards and movie theaters seem like a sardonic, twisted objective correlative.
There is not a single likable character in this book. There are funny moments here and there, especially at the beginning of this book. As the plot trods on, one realizes that there isn't much of a development . Faye keeps playing with all the men in her life, and each of those men keeps drooling over this not-very-bright, nor-very-likable 17-year-old wannabe actress. As time goes on, there is less and less to laugh or even smile at.
The Day of the Locust is pure chaos. While one would expect the main character Tod to be earnest and honest in his pursuits, he turns out to be just as much of a deviant as everybody else in the book. I assumed Tod was going to provide the reader with a set of clear, sober eyes that can see the depravity of his surroundings and maneuver his way around them. Instead, he sits at the very core of the group of creepy old men who are trying to get Faye to sleep with them. The reader is never really made to understand why all these men are so hopelessly fawning over Faye, other than that she is young and beautiful, and an apt seductress.
I don't really know what to take away from this book. It certainly was, as other reviewers have mentioned, way, way ahead of its time. I didn't expect such a bleak, hopeless, nihilistic description of the business of show from a book published in 1939. But then again, maybe I was just being naïve. In the face of the #MeToo movement, The Day of the Locust seems painfully current. In West's Hollywood, sex is the only real currency. Most of the characters are broke anyway, and Faye is the only one who can actually pursue any kind of change because she has something to offer. Not her talent, not her skill, mind you, only her body. That's all that seems to be worth anything in this depraved, perverted sub-society.
To sum it up, this is definitely a depressing read. I have to say it kept me glued to the page, and I finished it off in a few days. However, that's not because of the subject matter, or the fantastic plot, but mainly because I like West's style. His descriptions are vivid and immersing, and I found myself completely submerged in his world; somehow caring about the characters even though, objectively, they are all utterly unlikable. That's why I gave The Day of the Locust four stars. I like dark, seedy-underbelly-type stories, and this definitely falls into that category. If you have a penchant for that type of semi-pulp, give this a read. If anything, let West's language suck you into a dark whirling vortex of depravity for a while. It's quite the sensation to be coming out of it on the other side. You'll never know what's happened.
P.S.: I can't help but picture a teenage David Lynch reading this book, and it sparking an inspiration or two in him.
It's almost like Hollywood's favorite topic is, and has always been, itself. It's a perfect metaphor for the self-absorbed, decrepit hellhole depicted in this novel. Hollywood is obsessed with telling its own story, over and over and over again, and still is to this day.
There is a nihilism about West's Los Angeles, one that bears a striking resemblance to the one in the titles I've mentioned above. The heartlessness, the bleakness of that place makes the neverending sunshine that permeates all of its boulevards and movie theaters seem like a sardonic, twisted objective correlative.
There is not a single likable character in this book.
Spoiler
Tod fantasizes about rape. Homer is a near-catatonic mess of a man. Faye is abusive and manipulative; and Earle, Abe, and Miguel seem like clichéd guest stars in this horribly black sitcom.Spoiler
except for Harry Greener's death (which I felt was a bit of a relief, because as much as the narrator seems to admire his theatrical antics, I found them very irritating)The Day of the Locust is pure chaos. While one would expect the main character Tod to be earnest and honest in his pursuits, he turns out to be just as much of a deviant as everybody else in the book. I assumed Tod was going to provide the reader with a set of clear, sober eyes that can see the depravity of his surroundings and maneuver his way around them. Instead, he sits at the very core of the group of creepy old men who are trying to get Faye to sleep with them. The reader is never really made to understand why all these men are so hopelessly fawning over Faye, other than that she is young and beautiful, and an apt seductress.
I don't really know what to take away from this book. It certainly was, as other reviewers have mentioned, way, way ahead of its time. I didn't expect such a bleak, hopeless, nihilistic description of the business of show from a book published in 1939. But then again, maybe I was just being naïve. In the face of the #MeToo movement, The Day of the Locust seems painfully current. In West's Hollywood, sex is the only real currency. Most of the characters are broke anyway, and Faye is the only one who can actually pursue any kind of change because she has something to offer. Not her talent, not her skill, mind you, only her body. That's all that seems to be worth anything in this depraved, perverted sub-society.
To sum it up, this is definitely a depressing read. I have to say it kept me glued to the page, and I finished it off in a few days. However, that's not because of the subject matter, or the fantastic plot, but mainly because I like West's style. His descriptions are vivid and immersing, and I found myself completely submerged in his world; somehow caring about the characters even though, objectively, they are all utterly unlikable. That's why I gave The Day of the Locust four stars. I like dark, seedy-underbelly-type stories, and this definitely falls into that category. If you have a penchant for that type of semi-pulp, give this a read. If anything, let West's language suck you into a dark whirling vortex of depravity for a while. It's quite the sensation to be coming out of it on the other side. You'll never know what's happened.
P.S.: I can't help but picture a teenage David Lynch reading this book, and it sparking an inspiration or two in him.
I read this for my literature of the city college English class. It's set in Hollywood in the 1920s which is an exciting time. But the book is not all that exciting. The writing is mediocre and so are the characters. I wasn't impressed. The characters were not likable or sympathetic.
So Hollywood seems nice. There are no redeemable characters, and they’re all pulled along by either vapid dreams or the force of the place. Everything is so artificial and hollow, the people as much as the houses they live in and the lives they inhabit. Really grim.
Two years ago, I was given this book with a bundle of other satirical novels for a satire class at Duke TIP, a college-level camp for high schoolers. I finally got around to reading it, and I think West's topics of discussion, like the superficialness of Hollywood and the danger of the American Dream, are quite clear. I can appreciate these warnings, but I question the way that West goes about communicating them through his characters.
The Day of the Locust follows an utterly unsympathetic, hypocritical protagonist whose defining characteristics are false entitlement to the affections of Faye Greener (the only important woman in the novel) and an observant eye. Homer Simpson is the most sympathetic character, but he isn't even very interesting until the very end, when he cracks and seems to become complex for both the first and last time.
I'm sure many, many feminist scholars have written on West's characterization of Faye. She has so much potential, but she's just as flat as (if not flatter than) all of her male counterparts. West also brings in Abe--a man with dwarfism--and Miguel--a Mexican-American. Defining these characters exclusively by their flaws (just like the average white men) could be a statement that even marginalized people suffer from the pull of the American Dream ideology, and I would appreciate that statement. But these people aren't offered more sympathy than Tod, and are offered much less than Homer is. The Juvenalian satirical style doesn't land very well when it's thrust equally upon caricatures of all kinds of people without regard to who really deserves it.
Now completely aside from all of this commentary on the actual novel, I was wondering if there's a problem with the physical 2012 Popular Classics Publishing Co. version of this book? My copy is badly formatted with spaces in random places and so many misspelled words that it became too distracting to read. I don't know if this is the case with other versions or not, but I'd like to know.
The Day of the Locust follows an utterly unsympathetic, hypocritical protagonist whose defining characteristics are false entitlement to the affections of Faye Greener (the only important woman in the novel) and an observant eye. Homer Simpson is the most sympathetic character, but he isn't even very interesting until the very end, when he cracks and seems to become complex for both the first and last time.
I'm sure many, many feminist scholars have written on West's characterization of Faye. She has so much potential, but she's just as flat as (if not flatter than) all of her male counterparts. West also brings in Abe--a man with dwarfism--and Miguel--a Mexican-American. Defining these characters exclusively by their flaws (just like the average white men) could be a statement that even marginalized people suffer from the pull of the American Dream ideology, and I would appreciate that statement. But these people aren't offered more sympathy than Tod, and are offered much less than Homer is. The Juvenalian satirical style doesn't land very well when it's thrust equally upon caricatures of all kinds of people without regard to who really deserves it.
Now completely aside from all of this commentary on the actual novel, I was wondering if there's a problem with the physical 2012 Popular Classics Publishing Co. version of this book? My copy is badly formatted with spaces in random places and so many misspelled words that it became too distracting to read. I don't know if this is the case with other versions or not, but I'd like to know.